Comparison with CIV?

[Brit]

Yes there are literally thousands of "fan" based created units and more being added every week.

Interesting to know. I knew that there was a mod-community for Civ units, but didn't know how big it was.

OK png works for me are you actually making APNG then? I was disappointed when Adobe did not include APNG to photoshop CS3 although the 3D functionality was useful.

No, I have each image in a separate PNG file. Each unit has a text file that describes exactly which image files to load for that unit.

Maybe you could have the users upload a folder containing the changes then each download would have a unique name so it should not overwrite any existing downloads. I wish I had more programming in my background but I focused on the graphics with programming restricted to HTML and CSS.

I do have to say that I am excited over the progress of this game however and look forward to finding out more.

Yeah, probably something like that. Right now, the system I use for maps, scenarios, and rules is that whenever a user uploads one of these files to my server, it gets a name based (partially) on their account username. Since usernames are unique, players aren't stepping on each other's files.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

The latter. The game doesn't require roads or freighters or anything like that. When you own it, the resource goes into your resource pool. I had thought about handling that differently, but was worried about making players manage too many things.

Historically, this is a strategy that worked. I didn't implement this, however, because I was afraid of requiring too much micro-management.

I would almost urge you to reconsider. I have always disliked teleporting resources, be they raw goods/ores or finished supply materials. I fully understand that this kind of thing can be a royal pain to implement in a way which will not bog the game down, but the alternative may take away too much of the "flavor" of early-mid 20th century combat, from subs attacking ocean commerce to cutting off enemy land units from supply, that it would be a simulation of such warfare in name only. Your game likely would be very lively and enjoyable anyway, and these are certainly virtues to shoot for, but it wouldn't really resemble the combat of the period much at all without the player having to consider and plan out his shipping & logistics needs. There are likely ways to do it which wouldn't involve a huge amount of micromanagement, perhaps by instituting automatic "shipping" orders which will send a convoy (sea or land) on its way every so often without repeated player input.

[Rocoteh]

I would almost urge you to reconsider. I have always disliked teleporting resources, be they raw goods/ores or finished supply materials. I fully understand that this kind of thing can be a royal pain to implement in a way which will not bog the game down, but the alternative may take away too much of the "flavor" of early-mid 20th century combat, from subs attacking ocean commerce to cutting off enemy land units from supply, that it would be a simulation of such warfare in name only. Your game likely would be very lively and enjoyable anyway, and these are certainly virtues to shoot for, but it wouldn't really resemble the combat of the period much at all without the player having to consider and plan out his shipping & logistics needs. There are likely ways to do it which wouldn't involve a huge amount of micromanagement, perhaps by instituting automatic "shipping" orders which will send a convoy (sea or land) on its way every so often without repeated player input.

I second that.

Considering the great importance of strategic warfare during both

WW1 and WW2 it should mean problems to exclude it from the game.

In such a case submarines will just be combat unit among others

and the Battle for the Atlantic will be pointless.

Rocoteh

[oufti]

I would like to be able to play this game with only imaginary countries, flags and cities, at least in solo.

Will it be possible directly, after overwritting some files or not possible at all ?

[Brit]

I second that.

Considering the great importance of strategic warfare during both

WW1 and WW2 it should mean problems to exclude it from the game.

In such a case submarines will just be combat unit among others

and the Battle for the Atlantic will be pointless.

Rocoteh

Yeah, I had some thoughts about putting freighters into the game - specifically to give submarines a larger role. (In fact, there are probably some old screenshots of freighters.) I could add them back in as a game variant - though, I'd have to rethink their role in the game.

[Brit]

I would like to be able to play this game with only imaginary countries, flags and cities, at least in solo.

Will it be possible directly, after overwritting some files or not possible at all ?

I think most games will be played with the random-map generator -- which means you pick the flags players are using and the map is randomly generated (with randomly generated islands, starting points for each player, cities, and geography).

[Plugger]

Goodaye Brit,

I'd like to weigh into the discussion here with a strong vote for some kind of convoy system, even if only simulated.

I own a bunch of turn based Strategy games (including Civ) and one common denominator amongst them is how they handle the supply/logistics aspect. Games that simplify it right down end up with two things happening, Civ being a good example of this.

The first is that the naval side of the game dies in the bum. Without convoys or trade routes to protect or interdict the only reason for a having a navy is to escort the occassional invasion fleet. This makes the naval aspect very bland and uninteresting compared to having to protect your convoys of vitally important resources feeding into your homeland.

The second is that they lose a lot of 'wargaming' customers who find that without this aspect being modeled the game is too 'dumbed down' for them.

There's a big provisio here though. If the game design makes the system too complicated and involved it ends up alienating a big segment of the market who aren't into heavy duty micro-management. The game designs that aim to steer a middle path that pleases everyone end up pleasing nobody in my experience (personal and from reading the relevant forums). The ones that are successful in this aspect of design are those that offer something to both ends of the spectrum.

In EoS - from the little I know of it - it could work that you give players the option of simplified resource management where convoys are NOT needed and as long as you own a resource site then it's magically available for use.

There would be a flip side option where, for example, resources freely flow along road / rail nets to the nearest port. They then stockpile up over time. The player has to build freighters that are then put into a convoy which carts the resources over to the nearest connected port to your home city. Only when they reach the capital can the resources be used. There could, of course, be a bunch of variations on this (eg. any city you own could be a destination point, a convoy - once set up - could be automated) but the concept of having to physically ship & rail your resources to where they are needed would be the underlying theme.

Built into this is the understanding that you have to protect your sea lanes, rail nets etc and in turn are able to wage economic war on your opponents.

A good example of a game that manages to do this (and make it scaleable so it appeals to both micro and macro type players) is Advanced Tactics (Matrix games).

I also own games where they have managed to do the above but have wrapped it up in a clunky interface (eg., Hearts of Iron 2) which buggers the design for everybody.

So in summary I'd give a big thumbs up for the need to implement a system to move resources around while also providing an easy option for players who don't like to deal with that kind of thing. A design that manages to model logistics while being streamlined and fun would be a bonus.

Cheers,

Plugger

[Brit]

Goodaye Brit,

I'd like to weigh into the discussion here with a strong vote for some kind of convoy system, even if only simulated.

I own a bunch of turn based Strategy games (including Civ) and one common denominator amongst them is how they handle the supply/logistics aspect. Games that simplify it right down end up with two things happening, Civ being a good example of this.

The first is that the naval side of the game dies in the bum. Without convoys or trade routes to protect or interdict the only reason for a having a navy is to escort the occassional invasion fleet. This makes the naval aspect very bland and uninteresting compared to having to protect your convoys of vitally important resources feeding into your homeland.

Yeah, I can see your point here. I would add that I think the naval-value also has to do with the distances between landmasses and number of landmasses. I generally found the naval combat in Civ3 to be really boring. I think it was mostly because there usually only a few landmasses (so once you made it across the single water gap, it was back to lots of land combat). You could generally run your transports across the water pretty quickly, too, since there was only a small gap. The ability to quickly shuttle ground-units across the water meant that enemy naval units were pretty useless at stopping invasions unless they were sitting right in front of your cities at the time you do the invasion. I generally thought that naval units were a waste of money - the kind of thing you built when you weren't sure what to build.

I thought the old Empire game had some interesting naval combat, and I think that's because there were so many islands and there was a gap between them - so players couldn't do quick transport-sprints from one island to the next. (Personally, I thought the old Empire game had the opposite problem: naval combat was interesting, but ground combat was boring.)

You're right, though - convoys would increase the importance of navies - though, only if nations owned several islands.

The second is that they lose a lot of 'wargaming' customers who find that without this aspect being modeled the game is too 'dumbed down' for them.

There's a big provisio here though. If the game design makes the system too complicated and involved it ends up alienating a big segment of the market who aren't into heavy duty micro-management. The game designs that aim to steer a middle path that pleases everyone end up pleasing nobody in my experience (personal and from reading the relevant forums). The ones that are successful in this aspect of design are those that offer something to both ends of the spectrum.

Well, I'll tell you the initial idea I had for freighters. My thought was that I wanted to make freighters and convoys relevant in the game. I thought about a system where players would build freighters, and then when they moved between two cities on different landmasses, that the cities would get a short production bonus whenever the freighter arrived. You could put these freighters on "patrol" (which means they repeat their orders indefinitely - i.e. repeatedly move between two or more cities), and those cities would get some bonuses. Under that system, the resources (gold, oil, iron, food) weren't involved at all with the freighters, and players who didn't use freighters didn't get penalized (though they didn't get the bonuses). The main problems with that idea was that: (1) I had to make the production bonuses large enough to make players want to build freighters (even though they might want to build military units), (2) if another player started using submarines to knock-out freighters, then the first player could simply stop building freighters - they didn't suffer any penalty for not using them, they just wouldn't get the bonuses, (3) I wanted a way to make production bonuses correlate with the distances between cities - otherwise, players would just have freighters move between cities right next to each other, back in the unreachable areas of their nation. I decided that I didn't really like that system. Although, there are obviously other possible ways that freighters could be used.

In EoS - from the little I know of it - it could work that you give players the option of simplified resource management where convoys are NOT needed and as long as you own a resource site then it's magically available for use.

Correct.

There would be a flip side option where, for example, resources freely flow along road / rail nets to the nearest port. They then stockpile up over time. The player has to build freighters that are then put into a convoy which carts the resources over to the nearest connected port to your home city. Only when they reach the capital can the resources be used. There could, of course, be a bunch of variations on this (eg. any city you own could be a destination point, a convoy - once set up - could be automated) but the concept of having to physically ship & rail your resources to where they are needed would be the underlying theme.

Built into this is the understanding that you have to protect your sea lanes, rail nets etc and in turn are able to wage economic war on your opponents.

A good example of a game that manages to do this (and make it scaleable so it appeals to both micro and macro type players) is Advanced Tactics (Matrix games).

I also own games where they have managed to do the above but have wrapped it up in a clunky interface (eg., Hearts of Iron 2) which buggers the design for everybody.

So in summary I'd give a big thumbs up for the need to implement a system to move resources around while also providing an easy option for players who don't like to deal with that kind of thing. A design that manages to model logistics while being streamlined and fun would be a bonus.

Thanks for the input. With all this talk about convoys and micro-management the past few days, I was beginning to think the way to handle this would be to automatically create freighters (maybe players would or wouldn't need to build them explicitly). The freighters would just "do their own thing" - moving between islands, resupplying them with some sort of materials (maybe the exact nature of the freight would be opaque to the players). Enemies could destroy these freighters, and there would be various penalties - for example, if you have an island with several cities, and enemy submarines keep sinking freighters moving to that island, then those cities would begin to suffer some penalties, as if they were experiencing shortages. I don't know. At least that system wouldn't require any input from the user. They wouldn't even need to give orders to the freighters. But, players would still need to keep their shipping lanes clear of enemy units (ships, submarines, aircraft). I suppose a similar system could be used with roads. Any thoughts?

[Plugger]

Goodaye Brit,

Thanks for the response, it's always interesting to see how designers approach things.

You asked for thoughts so here's another.

I mentioned Advanced Tactics in the previous post. Similar one man with a vision game as you appear to be doing here. It handles the logistics / convoy situation quite cleverly.

It has a series of HQ units. Supply is moved between them automatically provided they are in a predefined 'supply transfer range'. This varies depending on the availabilty of a road/rail net, terrain and enemy zoc's. Units are assigned to a particular HQ and the relevant HQ, once it recieves supply from higher up the chain, distributes supply as needed to each of it's attached units (with range restrictions as before).

To cross water you have to have HQ's on either side of the ocean. At least one of these HQ's need to have merchant ships attached to them. The ships don't physically move, they are simply attached and are assumed to ply a continuous path between the two HQ's.

The really clever bit is that any sea going unit can interdict this path simply by being in the area. The program computes a hex path between the two HQ's and any enemy naval unit that is within a certain distance of that path will interdict 'x' amount of supply per turn. There are a couple of variables here. The closer the naval unit is to the actual path the more supply it will interdict so a submarine or cruiser right on top of the path would interdict serious amounts of supply but if they were, say 2 hexes off the path then it might just be a nuisance value effect. The other variable is that each naval unit has a supply interdiction ability so that, for instance, a destroyer has less effect sitting ontop a convoy route than a battleship.

Land based air, given the right orders (there is a simple box that you tick for 'anti-supply'), will act the same way, with an effect based on the range from the airbase (eg. loiter time) to the nearest convoy route and the plane type (eg. fighters are less effective than divebombers).

The program will graphically show both your losses due to enemy anti-supply actions and also what you've done yourself in this area by overlaying small circles at the beginning of each turn. Red circles being what's happened to you (bad) and blue the opposite (good). A number inside each circle indicates how much supply you interdicted in each hex. So sending a submarine on patrol across an enemy convoy lane will give you a bunch of blue circles with numbers in them showing where you caused mayhem and telling you also where the best place to position your subs should be (circles with the biggest numbers in them indicating the closeness of the actual convoy path).

Of course the opposition looks at his screen at the beginning of his turn and see's identical numbers but in red circles. He can then tell where an enemy naval unit, perhaps, is operating against his convoy and can then send out some ASW forces to deal with the problem, for example.

A related anti-supply effect is that occasionally (probability dice roll based how much supply was lost) a merchant ship, or two, are sunk as well. The game models merchant ships having a set capacity and the number of merchants assigned to a HQ determines how much supply you can automatically transfer per turn across the ocean convoy link. Lose some merchants and your capacity drops.

So the design simulates the moving of supply, the need to build merchants to shift it but does so without the hassle of physically shunting merchants here and there. A player is forced to protect his sea lanes or loose significant amounts of supply and merchant ships. The actual interdiction is all done in a manner that is simple yet highly effective at simulating logistics and requires minimal micro-managment.

Now to transpose this to AoE I'd imagine the following. Instead of HQ's you have cities. Resources have to be transported to your capitol in order to be utilised. You build freighters /merchants. You assign them to a city on one side of the ocean gap. Keep it simple. You need, say three freighters to get you full amount of resources across the gap. Lose one and you are down to 2/3rd's. Loose two and you are only managing to convoy 1/3 of that resource across each turn.

The program maps a route across the ocean from one city to another. You could even display it (a colored line linking the two cities across the ocean). Any enemy naval force / land air unit could move over that route (smaller scale of AoE so you either are on it or you're not. No periphal effects.) Once done, the unit makes a roll to see how much effect it has on the convoy situation. Given AoE's resource system (from what little I can gather from screenshots), the roll might simply be the chance to deep six a freighter. Each hex you move on the convoy path causes another roll. Varied by a units 'anti-freighter' rating (using one of the existing unit-type attack strengths).

You sink a freighter. Resource transfer amount drops until a player replaces the freighter. You'd also need some visual indication for both players as to what happened and where. Maybe a little sunk freighter icon in a hex at the beginning of a turn.

So you have convoys. You have a need to build and replace freighters. You have the need to protect your sealanes. You have the ability to wage economic war. Apart from the need to assign merchants to a coastal city and check how many you have there is zippo micro-management by a player. Even this could be done by a few easy visual reminders such as a button that you press to overlay your convoy routes on the map. They are color coded for how effective they are.

You have three merchants available on that route (attached to a city) then the route is colored, say green. Two merchants - not enough - the route is colored orange. One merchant, red.

I'd probably also make resource transfer over land automatic via the road/rail net. Keep it simple. No road/rail net free of enemy zoc's then no transfer.

Given EoS's heavy ocean going theme (once again an impression from your screenshots) one way or another you need to have a rip snorting naval / air war.

This is a lot longer than I intended but you did ask for ideas. If it's of any use I can post a screenshot from the other game showing it in action.

And, no, I won't be around with a shotgun if you don't like my idea.

Note: To be fair to all it isn't my idea and I'm only suggesting a design concept that could be adapted to your game. The person who designed Advanced Tactics, Victor Rej..., has done a hell of job and I'm not advocating you rip of his hard work. The concept, however, is worth a look. He's a decent bloke and would probably respond favourably if you approached him directly.

Cheers,

Plugger

[Hawk]

...With all this talk about convoys and micro-management the past few days, I was beginning to think the way to handle this would be to automatically create freighters (maybe players would or wouldn't need to build them explicitly). The freighters would just "do their own thing" - moving between islands, resupplying them with some sort of materials (maybe the exact nature of the freight would be opaque to the players). Enemies could destroy these freighters, and there would be various penalties - for example, if you have an island with several cities, and enemy submarines keep sinking freighters moving to that island, then those cities would begin to suffer some penalties, as if they were experiencing shortages. I don't know. At least that system wouldn't require any input from the user. They wouldn't even need to give orders to the freighters. But, players would still need to keep their shipping lanes clear of enemy units (ships, submarines, aircraft). I suppose a similar system could be used with roads. Any thoughts?

I like this idea, I like it a lot! You make strategic protection/interdiction important while keeping the user input/management at a minimum. If you create the code for handling this at sea, I guess it would be possible to extend this to ground and possible air as well?

[Rocoteh]

Yeah, I had some thoughts about putting freighters into the game - specifically to give submarines a larger role. (In fact, there are probably some old screenshots of freighters.) I could add them back in as a game variant - though, I'd have to rethink their role in the game.

That sounds very good.

What do you think about this system:

All players start the game with a given number of raw material

stockpiled in pools.

Every time a unit is created in a production-city a number of

points is deducted from the pool.

When new raw material is produced at a resource square it will

be represented with a truck (if its inland) or a freighter

(if its coastal).

A truck will auto-convert to a freighter if its moved to a

coastal resource.

Then an oil resource produced at for example Kuweit (represented

by a freighter) could be set with a "move to London order".

When it reaches london it will auto-add to the resource-pool.

Such a system should add minimum of bookkeeping for players

but it would make play much more interesting.

Rocoteh

[dieseltaylor]

My initial thought was to just have holding pools to which freighters and convoy protection vessels/air are assigned. Both players can also assign assets - naval to corresponding attack pools.

However the knock on here is that within say 10 hexes of known enemy bases you cannot use convoys /abstracted forces. Supply would have to be by destroyer etc.

The abstracted pools effect supply throughout the Empire and therefore production rates decrease. I would like the concept of supply routes however I am wondering if the complexity in play is getting too high.

I have recently started playing CIV3 and that does flounder on so many levels. As I was saying to a fellow player - if you view it as a puzzle game it works. As a recreation of civilisations and warfare it sucks mightily. I do wonder if because it has no randomisation in production values etc the entire game has been analysed to death as a game. I hope EoS does not suffer the same fate.

[Brit]

Now to transpose this to AoE I'd imagine the following.

I assume you mean "EoS", rather than "AoE"?

[Rocoteh]

My initial thought was to just have holding pools to which freighters and convoy protection vessels/air are assigned. Both players can also assign assets - naval to corresponding attack pools.

However the knock on here is that within say 10 hexes of known enemy bases you cannot use convoys /abstracted forces. Supply would have to be by destroyer etc.

The abstracted pools effect supply throughout the Empire and therefore production rates decrease. I would like the concept of supply routes however I am wondering if the complexity in play is getting too high.

I have recently started playing CIV3 and that does flounder on so many levels. As I was saying to a fellow player - if you view it as a puzzle game it works. As a recreation of civilisations and warfare it sucks mightily. I do wonder if because it has no randomisation in production values etc the entire game has been analysed to death as a game. I hope EoS does not suffer the same fate.

I recommend you to test one of the many very good mods or scenarios

that have been produced.

For example: The Age of Imperialism by El Justo.

The unmodded epic Civ 3 is outdated and boring to play.

Rocoteh

[BadKharma]

I really think that having some type of "supply" route being required to supply armies when they are not on their main continent or island would add a level of strategy to gameplay that cannot be overlooked. If a resource creates X number of Iron, oil or whatever each turn some of that would be consumed in producing new units and different improvements like naval shipyards steal mills factories etc. Then having an army away from the resources would require X number of food, oil, gasoline, etc that could be deducted from the initial supply and having that be required to cross by a sea route adds the very important naval and logistic aspect. You could also have a more limited supply by on transport aircraft which cannot carry as many supplies and that would make controlling the air routes also important. I feel that logistics is far too often overlooked and although it does add some more "book keeping" for the player it also effects how you wage war strategically so it is a level of complexity I urge you to include.

It might even be a good idea at looking at the resources requiring an available route to and between cities because once again it makes them a strategic factor for the human or AI player to capture or block the availability.

[Plugger]

Goodaye Brit,

I assume you mean "EoS", rather than "AoE"?

Yep.

Here's a screenshot that gives a rough indication of what I outlined above.

It's been run through Illustrator as part of an AAR I did but you can see the concept of the sub wolf pack interdicting the convoy lane and causing losses (blue circles) due to their presence.

The red circles indicate an enemy naval or land based air presence interdicting one of my own convoy routes.

As mentioned previously the merchants / frieghters don't physically ply the convoy route. They are simply attached to a HQ / city and exert a 'virtual' presence.

One other thing that I didn't mention is that when you interdict a convoy route, in addition to the couple of variables already mentioned, there's one other which is your distance from a city / port. If you send you subs out into the deep blue sea and hit the convoy lanes there you'll get a much lower return than if you park them right outside one of the cities.

Think of an american sub in the pacific. Way out in the wild blue yonder you're lucky to see a ship, even if you're in the middle of a convoy lane. But if you're sitting off the entrance to Tokyo harbour then you're in target city. Simple but effective like the rest of the logistical design.

It's only one way of doing it and you've got a bunch of other good ideas here. Hopefully you can figure out something that works for you as the designer / programmer.

I'd imagine the hard bit isn't the doing of it but in getting the AI to deal with it intelligently.

Cheers,

Plugger

[Plugger]

Goodaye,

Just for the hell of it here's another screenshot showing what happens when a couple of cruisers go on a merchant raiding frenzy through your convoy lanes.

Cheers,

Plugger

[Brit]

Goodaye,

Just for the hell of it here's another screenshot showing what happens when a couple of cruisers go on a merchant raiding frenzy through your convoy lanes.

Cheers,

Plugger

Huh. Thanks for the screenshots. I've never seen Advanced Tactics before.

[Plugger]

Goodaye Brit,

Huh. Thanks for the screenshots. I've never seen Advanced Tactics before.

It's worth a look. Great game. Superb streamlined design. Don't be put off by the name, it's more Strategic / Operational scaled than tactical.

Cheers,

Plugger

[pad152]

From the screen shots, this game looks just like Advance Tactics, any connection?

[Plugger]

Goodaye,

What do you think about this system:

All players start the game with a given number of raw material

stockpiled in pools.

Every time a unit is created in a production-city a number of

points is deducted from the pool.

When new raw material is produced at a resource square it will

be represented with a truck (if its inland) or a freighter

(if its coastal).

A truck will auto-convert to a freighter if its moved to a

coastal resource.

Then an oil resource produced at for example Kuweit (represented

by a freighter) could be set with a "move to London order".

When it reaches london it will auto-add to the resource-pool.

Such a system should add minimum of bookkeeping for players

but it would make play much more interesting.

Rocoteh

I like Rocotech's idea better than mine. Simpler yet does the job.

If all the resources had to be auto-shipped/trucked back to your Capitol then the player wouldn't even have to set the destination.

Perhaps there could be a setting in the options that lets the player set the amount of resources generated at source before a ship /truck is generated. Do I go with regular smaller shipments or perodical bigger ones?

If the ship / truck was generated at the source a turn before initiating movement it could give the player an opportunity to provide it with an escort.

If you wanted to get fancy you could let the player click on an automoving ship / truck and then give their own orders. This could allow them to reroute a convoy past a dangerous situation or to stockpile a few trucks before running them up the road in one lot along with an escort.

Part of setting the difficulty level for the player could be in choosing the intial pool of resources that you and your opponents start with.

So you have shipments that are auto-generated and auto-moved requiring no micro-management yet still providing opportunites to wage economic war, both on land and sea.

There's also the possibility to let players who are so inclined micro-manage the logistics so it would be scaleable (eg. simple option with none of the above, standard option as above and advanced option where players can manually intervene.)

Cheers,

Plugger

[Rocoteh]

Goodaye,

I like Rocotech's idea better than mine. Simpler yet does the job.

If all the resources had to be auto-shipped/trucked back to your Capitol then the player wouldn't even have to set the destination.

Perhaps there could be a setting in the options that lets the player set the amount of resources generated at source before a ship /truck is generated. Do I go with regular smaller shipments or perodical bigger ones?

If the ship / truck was generated at the source a turn before initiating movement it could give the player an opportunity to provide it with an escort.

If you wanted to get fancy you could let the player click on an automoving ship / truck and then give their own orders. This could allow them to reroute a convoy past a dangerous situation or to stockpile a few trucks before running them up the road in one lot along with an escort.

Part of setting the difficulty level for the player could be in choosing the intial pool of resources that you and your opponents start with.

So you have shipments that are auto-generated and auto-moved requiring no micro-management yet still providing opportunites to wage economic war, both on land and sea.

There's also the possibility to let players who are so inclined micro-manage the logistics so it would be scaleable (eg. simple option with none of the above, standard option as above and advanced option where players can manually intervene.)

Cheers,

Plugger

Maybe a nation should start with only 1 city (and 2-3 reserve cities) that can receive

resources.

The British Empire for example:

London, Halifax in Canada and Sydney in Australia.

Thus if Germany conquers the British homeland the British Empire

still can continue to fight. In this example Halifax would be activated as a "can receive resources" city

after the fall of London.

As you say I think its important that one should be able to assign escorts

to freighters in a easy way.

I really hope there will a strategic warfare system in Empires of Steel.

During more then five years I have made scenarios for Civ 3 so I think

I can well evaluate what the lack of strategic warfare will lead to.

In fact one must regard the naval system in Civ 3 as a total failure.

Thus a typical WW-2 scenario will open like this:

The first 4-5 turns AI will throw 80-90% of its naval forces against

the human player.

After that one side will control the oceans and can move its transports

as it wants.

For sure not realistic!

The naval aspects will in this way this fast become uninteresting.

There is no way to simulate strategic warfare no matter how you

use the editor.

What Firaxis think about this no one knows since its many years

since they had any interest to communicate with their customers.

Rocoteh

[John DiFool the 2nd]

I've been hesitant to toss in this comparison, for various reasons, but after seeing the above posts I'll do so anyway. The convoy routes thing depicted above is very similar to how SC2 does it. Sadly, SC2 almost completely lacks any flexibility (esp. with respect to the AI) if you just want to toss together a quick scenario-you can't, because of all the scripting you must do to even make it remotely playable. But that's an argument for a different BF sub-forum.

[dieseltaylor]

I on one hand fear that complexity may detract from a very simple Empire like experience and on the other hand like the complexity. Which brings me back to what makes a good multi-player game. CIV sucks mightily as a multiplayer so perhaps there should be care in extracting good bits from other games if the whole experience is diminished.

Incidentally perhaps the use of an ironclad based scenario would provide a simpler game before tweaking to subs and airpower .... Hard to say as I am not familiar with EoS other than by what is here.

[BadKharma]

I've been hesitant to toss in this comparison, for various reasons, but after seeing the above posts I'll do so anyway. The convoy routes thing depicted above is very similar to how SC2 does it. Sadly, SC2 almost completely lacks any flexibility (esp. with respect to the AI) if you just want to toss together a quick scenario-you can't, because of all the scripting you must do to even make it remotely playable. But that's an argument for a different BF sub-forum.

However the ability to "script" using a system like xml offers allot more flexibility in the long run. I would suggest looking into having a system like that in place you could even have generic scripts available in an editor.